Lake Louise/sunshine village. 02/05-02/12/18

great pics
love the pic of the avi

Looks like some bluebird at the top of Louise's summit.  Niiiccee.

Nice work TJ

weather looks to be perfect!

So here we go.

I left for the airport at 2:30 am and got to the Fairmont Lake Louis at 6:15 PM.  It was a long day traveling but it never seems bad on the way out.

The first day skiing was at Lake Louis.  It was cloudy and beginning to snow and looking around you could not tell what the scenery was like.  You could see but for very far.  They are having a decent year and we tooled around a bit. Lake Louis is a big mountain but it does not seem giant there is still an quaint feel like an east coast mountain.  Felt the hill out and scoped the maps for where I was going to ski Wed. as snow was forecasted.

The second day was the best day of the week.  We woke up to 5 inches down low and it was snowing hard all morning.  Got to the lifts before they started spinning,  Took a four pack then a six pack up to the gulch.   Came over skiers left on the Gulch with untracked powder.  If you did not have a pitch of more than 20 degrees you were pretty much coming to a stop.  Got really excited when getting first tracks as I knew where I was going and it was going to be like that for a while.  Top three powder day.   Gad chair and MRG being the other two in previous years.  When we got to the bottom of the gulch jumped back on the six pack and headed back up.  From there we cut across the mountain to the Disc chair.  That is where the pic came from going down into the woods with untouched lines.  Jumped the disc chair and took the ride to the top of the mountain.  It was snowing hard but still manageable as far as vis.  The back side was not open yet so we headed down the front side bowl.  That is where I was getting waterboarded.  Snow up to my hips.  Was making turns and getting face shots at one point I could not breathe because of the altitude and snow covering my mouth and nose.  I refused to stop and after about 4 turns the face shots diminished and I carried on.  Came to a spot I could see off in the distance and wanted to get there.  because I the flat light it looked doable.  When down the bowl and about half way down I could see I needed more speed.  Started straight lining and it just kept getting steeper. Snow was not up to my tits and it had to have been 45 degrees and I was a little nervous I was not going to make it across.  When it flattened out I went totally under the snow and popped back up at which point I blew up.    Nothing came off but I wallowing in the snow and could not get up without taking my skis off.  Had to slog out of there and that took 20 minutes.  Oh well.  Back at it.  Went over to the pack side and skied the Paradise chair which is probably the best chair to ski for skiers.  Steep and deep all morning.  In the afternoon the sun came out and I headed back to the big boy bowls.  That bowls off the back for the disc chair ore the real deal and it was face shots all day.  Called it at 2:30 and headed back to the hotel.


Thursday the sun came out and when I walked out the back door of the Fairmont I got the holy cow look.  surrounded by 10k mountain that were not in view the previous two days.  They had an ice sculpture contest the previous week and the back yard was filled with them.  Pretty talented people and it was enjoyable to look at after skiing all day.

Friday we took the shuttle down to Sunshine.  Sunshine is laid out differently from any other mountain  I have been at.  Its really long with a lot of flat spots.  You take a 20 minute Gondi line to get up to the main skiing area and go from there.  It was minus degrees and was  about has cold as I have experienced skiing.  The snow was slow and lots of poling if you did not keep your speed up.  Kinda cruised around every lift to see what was up.  They have a heated 4 pack that is pretty much useless other than to jump on to warm up.  May be if I was there longer I could have figured out how to utilize it better.  Top of the world lift services some pretty serious back country.  I did not have a shovel and probe and never made it in there.  Little regretful but you can only do what you can do.

Sat.  Laundry day and explored Banff.   Cool town with great views of the hills around you.

Sunday was the day to see what Banff had.  Lost my partner but picked up a guy from Texas to ski with.  Yeah Texas and the guy could rip.  We hung out on the goat chair which serviced 1800 vert of just about anything you could want.  Jumped some cliffs and skied the steeps pretty much all day.  It took a while but I beat the Texan into submission we had a great time and skied everything off that chair.


The hotels we stayed at were top notch the skiing terrain was just not far below that.  I have been to mountains I thought were better but do not regret going.  Best to go with a girl to these resorts as it was a very quaint environment.  

That's it.  Back to work.

tjf1967 wrote

Sunshine is laid out differently from any other mountain I have been at. Its really long with a lot of flat spots.

A lot of people have similar sentiments, many with a "I didn't care for it" at the end. I went on two weekdays in late March 2007, scored excellent conditions, and kinda liked the disjointed feel.
Day 1: http://www.firsttracksonline.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3017
Day 2: http://www.firsttracksonline.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3025

I wanna get out to Sunshine Village to check out Delirium Dive.  With the crown in one of the photos posted I wonder if it was open.

Nice trip and report